Education Mess

I'm at an education conference in San Francisco this week, the Academic Senate for the California Community Colleges. We heard a keynote speech today from Dr. Patrick Ainsworth, an Assistant Superintendent for the California Department of Education. Dr. Ainsworth is Director of the Department's Secondary, Postsecondary and Adult Leadership Division.

Dr. Ainsworth spoke mainly about problems in California's High School system. High Schools in California and around the nation are generally held to be in pretty bad shape. That's an important concern for the entire country, of course, and particularly for those of us who are Community College educators, since we are responsible for bringing many students up to college standards who come in underprepared and performing below these standards in basic college-level skills. A major effort in California is being devoted to the Community College "Basic Skills Initiative" in order to remediate this problem.

While the BSI could well be the subject of a future blog, I was struck by some rather startling statistics Ainsworth shared with us that bear careful consideration. He reported that in 1950, 60% of the jobs required a high school education or less, 20% needed some post-high school training or education, and 20% required a 4-year degree or more. By 1990 the respective figures were 35% for high school or less, 45% post-high school and 20% a degree. In 2010 the job market is expected to need 10% with only high school or less, 65-70% some post-high school training, and 20-25% with a 4-year degree or more.

Now, what strikes you most about the way the job market has changed? If you're like me, what jumps out at you is NOT that so many more college graduates are needed, because they're not. The percentage of jobs that require a 4-year college degree or more will only have grown from 20% up to "20-25%." Imagine that, no more than a 5% increase in sixty years. What really HAS grown is the share of jobs that need people with some specialized training but not a traditional academic degree. That's up from only 20% to between 65 and 70%, an increase that is absolutely huge.

This clearly suggests what is needed: more vocational programs, what today is referred to as Career Technical Education. The movement that began about 25 years ago that got rid of shop classes in high schools in order to try to track everyone to college has been counterproductive. Not everyone is suited for or interested in college. And the economy needs millions of machinists, nurses, programmers, mechanics, construction and maintenance workers, retail and office managers, communications specialists, public safety personnel, members of the armed services, machine operators and technicians of innumerable types. In fact, it needs roughly three times as many of them as it does college degree graduates.

That is what the high schools, in particular, need to go back to and re-emphasize. CTE programs have been growing dramatically at the community college level, and high schools must follow suit. Trying to fit all students into a mould for which they are not suited and which does not correspond to the real-world jobs that most of them are interested in and will be spending their working lives doing is an exercise in futility foisted on them in a spirit of aristocratic hauteur. When schools fail to provide the type of educational opportunities that most people need it is small wonder so many drop out. Let's return to common sense and in addition to the three R's and college prep, once again start offering the kinds of training most young people know they will need to succeed in the marketplace. It's time for a major effort to bring vocational CTE back to our high schools.